TOPGUN Leadership: Lessons from Naval Aviation's Elite

Welcome everybody. This is Jonathan Kirschner and we are on a podcast about leadership and today is a very, very special day. So, um, let me just set the stage here. It's 1986. I'm 6 years old and my parents wanted to see Top Gun in the big theaters. So the first movie I ever saw was Sesame Street. The second movie I ever saw in the theaters was Top Gun, arguably a little young at the age of 6, but that's, that's what I saw. And I became obsessed. The first job, if you asked me when I was 7 years old, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'd say a naval aviator. I would say Maverick, right? Maverick, which is, of course, the shirt. So you can see with the F-14 on our desk here, my Maverick t-shirt. And let me just also share another item here, an artifact. It says Blue Angels on the back. They couldn't find the patch. My parents couldn't find the patch that was in the movie. But we do have a Tomcat patch here and an F-14 patch. This was my coat, which my son now wears. And with us today on a podcast about leadership, we have 3 former Top Gun instructors and naval aviators. And we're going to actually turn this into an incredible learning opportunity and learn from the best of the best, as they say in Top Gun. So let me just orient us. Top Gun isn't just a movie. Obviously, there's Top Gun 1, there was Top Gun 2. It is not just a movie. It is the school for The best of the best, the 1% of naval aviators. And, and today we have Mike, Jay Todd, and Tracy. Mike was a Top Gun instructor, has an incredible career, which we'll dig into. Jay Todd, Top Gun staff instructor in the early '90s, then went on to lead the Office of Naval Intelligence. And Tracy was part of the very first cadre of female combat aviators ever to deploy on a US aircraft carrier. The fascinating thing for me, in addition to the nostalgia and the awe, is that all three are leadership advisors and executive coaches today. So not only are we gonna get to learn from their rich experiences and perspectives, but also understanding how that connects to their current practice today of executive coaching and leadership development and their respective philosophies on what leaders need to be the best of the best. So let's, let's dig in and What I would love to start with is just understanding this culture of callsign. Give us the story and then let's popcorn around. Tracy, I'd love to know your callsign and the story behind that. And then J Todd. Okay. So Wizard was not my original callsign. I'm one of the only fighter guys who had a transformation. My first callsign was not so great. I'd been very young in Vietnam. I got kind of pushed out there early. I was doing some great things professionally. It was the best professional year of my life. I could seem to do no wrong. And I was running around the flight deck one day hopping over tow tractor things and other stuff. And one of the vets said, you're running around North Vietnam and nobody can hit you. And you're running around here like a damn deer. I think we're going to call you Bambi. Bambi. Okay. And so after that deployment, because the Navy felt bad I hadn't gotten all the training that I should have had, they offered me a spot in the first F-14 squadron. And I went there and it was 3 hangars over and I did some spectacular stuff. And so they started calling me Wizard with an extra Z in it., and by the time the call sign police 3 hangars over found out about it, it was too late. It'd become ingrained. So I'm very fortunate to have escaped an average call sign. Many people do not. I was in the first section. I got picked to be in the first section to go fly against the MiGs. We didn't have an Area 51. And then I got to shoot the first operational Phoenix missile, which was the big Phoenix missile off a carrier. And so that kind of crystallized it for them. You get Wizard for that. Okay. That's amazing. Thank you, Wizard. Tracy. Yeah, unlike Wizard, I didn't get to escape my first call sign. It stuck with me. It's usually not given to you by something good that you do. It's usually something embarrassing. But my call sign, the story goes something like this. Which I was given almost immediately upon joining the squadron. Remember, as the first and only woman in my squadron. So there I was, 24 years old, trying desperately to fit in, and the very first port visit we had was in Rhodes, Greece. So whether it was in an effort to fit in or just my nerves, let's just say I was trying to keep up with the boys and might have had a little bit too much to drink. I was wearing at the time on Liberty a hat with a big flower on it, which resembled a hat that was worn by an actress in a popular TV show back at that time called Blossom. My hat got passed around many times that night, and there might be some photographic evidence of that out there, but I was eventually given the callsign Blossom. It stuck, as that's how folks started to refer to the new girl in the hat. On the ship. And then eventually my squadron mates teased me that it was a reminder of how they were really enjoying watching me blossom into a wonderful aviator and one of them. So that's, that's how I got it. I really wanted something like Killer or Ace, something tough, but Blossom is what it is. Wizard, Blossom, and J. Todd, you're up. So in your database of two here, you've learned that Some call signs are distinguished and others aren't. Mine falls into the latter category. Back in those days on the aircraft carrier, your mail that you received was somewhat distributed in a public way so people could see, you know, whose mail it was. And a girlfriend I had at the time addressed it to Todd-er, T-O-D-D-E-R, her term of endearment for me. So it stuck. And fortunately it wasn't Tracy at the time because if it was, my call sign would be Honey Bun still to this day. But that's, that's what it was and it stuck. And as a career Naval intelligence officer, I got to the point where call signs were no longer a thing and I just migrated to, you know, first initial middle name because that's the way I was raised. So I've been J Todd since 1995. Wonderful. Wizard Blossom J. Todd, when you all watch Top Gun today, I mean, you lived it, you were there. When you watch it, what did they get right? Like, what part of it is sort of authentic and accurate? And what part of it, you know, do you wish they would have gotten better? I've got a quick answer for you on this question. I think the movie did a really good job of demonstrating what it's like to be something a part of something much larger than yourself. I think the prestige of being a Top Gun, and whether it's a Top Gun student or a Top Gun instructor, plays out in the movie. I think one thing that the movie misses, and I'm not saying this as a fault because it just wasn't the intent, but every one of those aircrew that you see in Top Gun, on the ground they are a renowned subject matter expert in an academic area. They are a very polished force of presence in front of a classroom, and the entire Navy recognizes them as an expert. And they don't get there by happenstance. It is a very rigorous process to get you groomed to be in front of an audience and have that Top Gun name tag on so that you represent something larger than yourself. That doesn't come out in the movie, but it didn't really need to. So, so whereas in the movie, like, the pilot, the, you know, the spotlight sort of on the, on the aviator, um, in, in reality, the instructor and aviator are equally respected. Um, and it's just as hard to become an instructor or any of the subject matter experts, you know, in that room as, as it is to become the pilot. Very, very true. In fact, we'll go through with you real quickly. It's a surprise where the 1% is quoted because, because that makes it easy, but they're very selective on who they take in the class and who beyond that they take as instructors, and they can pick anybody they want in both cases. And the surprising thing is it's not hired for talent. They're talented. They have personality, passion, but— and they have big egos, but they have strong self-esteem and humility and the ability to point your finger at yourself and a desire to teach and share are critical. And the humility is required because When you go through their instructor under training program, you're going to get so good that you could, if you had to win, you'd win every time. And so you're there to teach. And their purpose greater than self is to never let the Navy go back into the hole in fighters than it was in Vietnam where they lost 500, they lost 360-plus airplanes and 800 16 aviators. So they all align with that. And so the last 3 questions, we talked about this a bit ago, they ask is, can I trust you? Can I trust you to do the right thing in every situation? And can I trust you to be judged by the highest possible standards? So they're all about reaching the standards. And that's the differentiator with Top Gun is their standards are extremely high. And as Todd said, The second thing that they think is the reason that Top Gun's Top Gun, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to run a 50-year panel with instructors from each of the 5 years at our 50th reunion, and it was like the same guy every time, 25 of the same guys, and they all espoused the same thing. It was the culture and then the IUT slash murder board process Whereas Todd says they give you a project and you become the Navy's expert in that area and you have to pass a murder board where they try to become the toughest audience you're ever going to face. And those debriefs can go on for hours and hours and you have to meet that standard or you don't get to brief it. And the other fun fact is that at the time of the movie, we had two women at Top Gun, Jan Dundas, who went on to be a captain of, in the Navy, and Linda Speed. And Jan Dundas was an intelligence officer. And they got the idea for a female involved with the aviators, but the Navy refused to allow, because of fraternization, it to be in the squadron. That's why they went and found Christine Fox, the agent. But Jan Dundas was lecturing in the Top Gun class in the early '80s. So there's been women around Top Gun for quite a while. It was only not that long ago that they started letting them fly in the, as instructors. I am just sort of curious, like this term best of the best. I don't know how many times it's shared in the movie itself, but that, that's sort of like the iconic phrase in the movie. And clearly, right, Top Gun, the school for the top 1%. It is for the elite and it is the best of the best. What is the, what's the, what are the characteristics that define that 1%? You know, you said, Wizard, like over 50 years you saw— was it 50 years? These panels. And if you took, you know, that there was sort of like a common denominator of the leaders within Top Gun, you know, what would that— what are those common denominators from your perspective? Well, they're just like you see out of Mr. J. Todd Ross down there. They're, they're credible, humble, and they're all about excellence and trying to get better. Constant learning, constant improvement. They have a passion for this. And, and they're also passionate about teaching and helping others get better because remember, Top Gun is to train the trainers. Who train the rest of the fighter community. So you have to have people that are going to, you know, push to the standard and then try to raise the standard. And so it keeps getting better year over year. I was there last November talking to them and it's, it's, I'm frankly glad I was a Top Gun instructor when I was because I couldn't compete with these people. That's incredible. So, so it's an appreciation for excellence, humility, and then I heard this just like this constant, um, desire, thirst for learning that, um, might be, you know, some of the core, uh, capability, uh, your competencies, I would say, to become a, um, to, to be part of that 1%. I did, uh, it's my understanding, Wizard, that you chose J. Todd, and J. Todd, correct me if I'm wrong, that you selected J. Todd to become an intelligence officer at Top Gun. The Wizard would have been an operations officer and an executive officer at Top Gun while I was graduating from college and joining the Navy, going through a commissioning program. And while he was at Top Gun, he screened for command., and he screened for command of a fleet F-14A fighter squad, right? Well, that squadron just happened to be my first assignment in the Navy. So Lizard was my executive officer, and we were getting ready to go. We were probably through our first deployment with him as executive officer, and he, you know, he realized I'm an ensign at the time. I knew next to nothing, but what he did realize is that I would be more effective in my job if I understood what these guys did in a deep and impactful way. And he thought I should be flying in the backseat of the F-14 with the squadron. So I went out and I got flight qualified and ejection seat qualified and survival qualified. And I started flying and I got to the point where I understood how to talk on the radios and work the radar and work the navigation systems. And I, I had an understanding of the way things were pressured back there in the back seat of the F-14. So it helped me be a more effective intelligence officer. And eventually he came to me and said, you know, I really appreciate what you're doing here. I think you'd be a great fit over in Hangar 1 at Top Gun, which was just extremely flattering to me, right? And I thought, wow, that's really something. But he said, But you got to stick around here 12 more months to make the deployment with me as the CO to do that. Okay, I'll do that. So I ended up spending nearly 4 years in my first assignment in the Navy, and it was supposed to be 2 and a half. But the reward for that was I became the intelligence officer at Top Gun. So he is responsible for it, but he wasn't there at the time. But he clearly saw something in you. And, and so in those 4 years that was supposed to be, you said 1 year or? At the time they were 30-month orders. So 2 and a half years. 2 and a half years to turn into 4 years. You were doing a lot of experiential learning, you know, kind of in the backseat of an F-14. Right. F-14 Alpha. What does that feel like physically to be in an F-14? It's the same in all three airplanes. It's not what you think it's going to be. It's a lot more demanding. It's a lot, you have to think a lot faster. Physically, it's a different world. And you've got all this stuff on and you're sitting in an ejection seat, which is pretty hard. It's like sitting on a wood seat, and, uh, and everything happens much faster than you're used to. And so you got to, you got to adjust to that whole thing. And, uh, really, you got to become almost— get outside yourself to really do well. Uh, you know, you almost have to compartmentalize. Since you're into the, the, the neuropsychology world, you've got to almost compartmentalize and take all the rest of your life and just put it over here. And you got to have a total present moment focus. Wow. Okay. All right. Getting back to leadership. And I am very curious, Blossom, as really one of the first women to ever deploy on a U.S. carrier in combat. And being a naval aviator in the S— refresh me on the name of the plane. The S-3B Viking. What was that like? What was that like being one of the only women in a very male-dominated context? I will say, you know, being the first comes with an incredible weight that people don't see. And one of the hardest parts is you don't just get to be average. You don't get to have a bad day. When I joined the Navy, women were still banned from combat aviation. Then the policy was revealed while I was in flight school. Suddenly we were stepping into those roles. But it was the early '80s. There was a lot happening at once coming out of, you know, out of the Gulf War, the end of the Cold War and the fallout. Let's not forget from the tailhook scandal was also happening at that time. So this just wasn't a policy change. It was really a cultural shift happening under extreme pressure and scrutiny. And not everyone welcomed that change, as you can imagine. So at 24 years old, and as the only woman in a squadron aboard the first-ever aircraft carrier to deploy with women, which they referred to lovingly as the Love Boat, the USS Eisenhower, it's almost incomprehensible to fully understand what's riding on that success or that failure. But you feel it. It's always there, always looming in the background. But it was never just about flying. Every checkride, every debrief, every mission, every interaction I had wasn't just about me. I felt that I carried the weight that if I made one mistake, even one, it could be seen as proof that no other woman belonged to be there or deserved to be there. So that's the burden my male peers never had to carry. So you work twice as hard not to be perfect, but to be— try to be consistent, try to be steady, and hopefully earn their trust. At the same time, you're walking this fine line, wanting to stay true to who you are as a woman while you're also trying to fit into the mold that somebody else expects you to fit into. You're learning a job, you're reading a room, you're adjusting, you're adapting in real time. But all eyes are always on you. And so there are also moments of isolation. I think people probably don't understand, and not dramatic, but real isolation. Being the only one can be very lonely and can be a very lonely place in an environment. And it was at times, especially on an aircraft carrier, all alone as it felt sometimes. But yet amidst all of that, there were, you know, I felt an immense amount of pride. About being the first. I wasn't just flying missions. I felt like I was holding the door open for women who would come after me. And so, and if you've done it right, you know, they won't have to carry the weight that you carried. So that's kind of how I approached it. And after reflecting on the question, that's how I feel. Wow. The one thing that sparks for me when I just heard you speaking, Tracy, is that there's a psychological weight And there's almost like a psychological g-force or pressure that you experience, you know, whether you're the, the, the naval aviator or the instructor who's sending people up, right, and training. I would— I'm just curious, like, how do you— and this is relevant to leaders because leaders, whether you're in the Navy or in corporate or in government, you're going to experience varying degrees of pressure and sometimes extreme pressure. I'm curious, how did you all, you know, cope, deal with, perhaps even leverage and harness that pressure to not break and actually continue to grow? And what advice would you give to leaders with regard to resilience and being able to not just cope with pressure, but even thrive under conditions of high pressure? You know, I'll start by saying, I think naval aviation in general has many opportunities for you to be humbled, right? And, you know, the opportunity for failure never goes away. And when I think back on all the leaders that I've coached over the last 10 years, one of the common themes I can kind of reflect on is that those that have openly acknowledged their string of failures seem to be the ones that have done the most. So when we talk about learning from failure, I think naval aviators are given the opportunity to fail more than the average person. And I think that inherently builds resilience over time. You know, this first squadron I was in with Wizard, I still have you know, relationships with many of the guys that were in that squadron. And I'm proud to have served with each and every one of them. But, you know, there are things that you do that are just inherently difficult and you will become a more resilient person just because of the environment. Yeah. And for me, you know, that failure is inevitable. I had to learn that the hard way, right? Failure is inevitable, but how you recover, I think, matters the most.. And one thing we're taught, plan your brief, brief your flight, fly your brief, right? It's about discipline and alignment. And, you know, I feel like most teams and the pressure on most teams, they don't fail because they can't execute. They fail because they weren't aligned going in or didn't have the support going in. So that this mindset, you know, forces you maybe to slow down upfront so you can move fast. Confidently when it matters. And that whole slogan, never leave your wingman. And if you're lucky, you've got good wingmen around you to help support you when that pressure is high. Yeah, I would add that the great leaders I've seen have one trait in common. They're all humble. The humility causes them to approach it by Let's say these 3 words: listen, learn, then lead. And so the people that think they've got it wired and they can't do anything wrong and haven't failed and haven't shown vulnerability tend to be more aggressive and may not take advantage of all the people that are working for them and all that knowledge. And all that experience. And so you're going to have failure in it. It's just not possible. And as Todd said, naval aviation forces you to be resilient because those are generally the people who fail. You fail Top Gun, in fact, for attitude because the constant review, constant change. They're not trying to throw you out. They're trying to help you graduate and meet the standard, but they're not going to give you a patch unless you meet the standard. And generally, the people that have left have left of their own accord because they can't continue to take that. They just, they're not performing and they see it and they withdraw because of that. Right. So, even within this elite best of the best 1%, you're still going to see attrition, people failing out, right? Um, so when we look at that and, and maybe like what kind of characteristics might be associated with people dropping out or not being able to make it, what I'm hearing from you is, you know, maybe it's ego on some level, right? Or not being able to— well, let's put some numbers on it. Right now, today, it's still true You're going to fail 30% of the hops in the Top Gun syllabus. And you have to re-fly them, not do push-ups as in Top Gun 2, but you're going to keep flying it again until you meet the standard. 30% right now. And actually that holds true for the instructor under training program because if you get picked Usually they pick, you know, a third of the staff is new every year and they get a behind-the-green-door brief. And after they finish that brief, it's still true today talking to the COs, the guys or girls say, whoa, maybe you got the wrong person here. And the hand goes on the shoulder. We've all been there and you get through that because you met this standard in the class. Now the Top Gun standard is going to be here and they expect you to raise it.. And so you're going to go through that instructor under training program and they clearly make it apparent to you that you're going to fail a good percentage of the flights until you achieve the Top Gun standard. And it's all about standard of performance, right? And they're very positive about how they do it, but it's the rigor comes not from fear or command and control or top down. Kind of leadership, which is most of the companies run under today. It's, it's the rigor is provided by the standards and trying to achieve them and raise them. That's incredible. It's really just being crystal clear about that standard, reinforcing that standard rather than leading through fear or sort of a very top-down, um, sort of culture is, is what I'm hearing from you. Correct. Um, I also really loved this, the ordering wizard of listen, learn, lead. I think sometimes we can get out of order, right? And sometimes you see people try to lead, maybe listen. Maybe learn, right? But there's this ordering of listen, learn, lead. I'm assuming that was very intentional, right? And perhaps the basis of, or the sort of the manifestation of what it means to be humble when you are actually in the elite, best of the best. Something I love This is a hypothesis I have about Top Gun and why it's such a— why it's imprinted on so many people's hearts. And I mean, it covers like every domain of life and all the Jungian archetypes, for those who are Carl Jung fans. But the one thing that really resonates for me in particular is Maverick. And I'm going back to Top Gun 1, the original, the OG, and where, you know, he kind of comes in a bit cocky, right? I mean, his name is Maverick and, you know, and he has these failures and some of these failures are just mildly consequential. And then there's the devastating loss of Goose. There's leaving his wingman almost like chasing a rabbit, right? And not exhibiting that discipline that Tracy, you know, that you're really underscoring. But throughout the arc of the story, what you start to see is that Maverick, through feedback, through his resilience and throwing himself back in, you know, he's ultimately like learning and he's maturing. Right? He starts to develop. And as we see in the end, like, he doesn't leave his wingman, right? You know, he doesn't chase the shiny object or the rabbit. He adheres to the discipline of not leaving his wingman. So I think that what's so inspiring about Top Gun is really seeing that trajectory of learning and how a person can transform themselves. Through learning and through resilience and of course courage. I am though curious, this whole wingman thing, is that for real? And what is the ethos? Like, what does that really mean? Don't leave your wingman. Okay, so this is gonna be a slight tutorial, okay? But when Top Gun got started, the Navy and the Air Force had not been doing well in Vietnam because they trained for the wrong war. They trained to fly high and fast against the Soviet bombers, and the small MiGs were really causing problems. And the way you typically led in the Navy was and the Air Force was very much this way, even more so, but you had lead and a wingman, and that was a senior guy and you'd follow him around. Top Gun changed all of that and said, we're going to fly abeam each other and whoever has the best picture, not senior, the best picture has the lead. And so it became tactical lead, tactical wingman. So the crown came off the heavy and everybody who was responsible to know and be able to lead. And that really transformed even the young people. You gotta really know what's going on because you can't just fly around. And so, and the big thing that it was explained to me right away was losing sight of your wingman is tantamount to murder. And so you just did not, lose track of that. We flew in section. That's where the Air Force flew in 4-plane. But that was really key to the Top Gun emphasizing that. And then that carried over into the debrief where everybody participated. No matter what your knowledge was, you were supposed to participate to the extent that you remembered something from the flight in the debrief. And they were very open and understanding and gentle about that, very positive about coming forward. Whereas back in the early days when I first got there, it was first guy to the chalkboard or senior guy telling everybody what he thought they did wrong. And then if you debriefed at all. And so they kind of changed that. And that was all part of that whole transformation. So it was not one term. It was a whole universe of that approach. I am curious, because, because you all are executive coaches, you work with leaders within organizations, those leaders lead teams, are on teams, um, is there like a, an analogy, is there a parallel between that concept of wingman and, um, and what you work with leaders on through your executive coaching work? I'm just curious. So, I think Wizard gave you a very tactical explanation of where that phrase comes from. And I think it can be easily leveraged by high-performing teams, right? You know, not leaving your wingman can mean something as simple as being there for a colleague on your team when they need help. It can be as simple as staying aligned to individual or corporate core values when the pressure rises up. So it's kind of a fancy phrase that actually means something in combat fighter aviation. But in general, I think it can be used to explain in an artful way lots of concepts for a high-performing team. Yeah, from my perspective, you know, for a team, never leaving your wingman really means no one operates alone, especially when it matters the most. Um, I think it shows up in how you communicate, how you share information with each other, how you speak up early. You don't let someone else walk into a problem you could have helped prevent. Um, it shows up in your execution where you help cover each other's blind spots. Someone's off their game one day, you step in and not to take over, but to support the mission and the person. Um, and it really shows up, I think, when something goes wrong. There's no finger-pointing. You own it as a team. You debrief it. You get better together. You learn from it. I think when that's missing, what is actually missing is the courage for teams to actually do that. People hold back. They don't speak up early. They avoid those hard conversations and being a good wingman. They prioritize looking good over making the team better. So I think being a good wingman on a team means it requires that the trust, but it also requires accountability. You have to be willing to say something, to step in, and to stay engaged even when it's uncomfortable. And that's where I see it in a lot of teams I work with, that accountability piece is somewhat lacking, and that's not being a good wingman. That's, um, it must frustrate— it might frustrate you when I bring in these anecdotes from Top Gun. The movie because you guys were in it and then know all the distinctions between, you know, the— Not at all. I love the movie. That's the reason I joined the Navy, Jonathan. There you go. Well, you know, I just— I think about Iceman and his critique, if you will, of Maverick and saying, you know, I can't trust you, basically. You're not safe, right? That's what he says. And you have this real rift. He's not a good teammate. He's not a good wingman. He might be a great individual producer or high performer as an individual, but as a wingman, Iceman's saying, I can't trust you in battle. Right. You, you, you, you, you, let me help you a little bit though, because at a certain point, uh, there was a lot of friction between, uh, the technical advisor who was an original Top Gun instructor and my mentor and literally did the Vulcan mind meld with me and poured into it. He's the gray-haired guy that loses the girl to Tom Cruise in the boat scene. He's the technical advisor, retired admiral, and he was the GOAT at the time. In the Navy, okay? Uh, and, uh, and, uh, and the writer, uh, um, uh, Jack Epps, and he, uh, really were, were, uh, very instrumental in that movie being what it was. Some other people as well, uh, Bob Willard, who was the— who choreographed all the flying scenes, is another Um, but he wanted to show competition, Epps the writer, and he wanted to show— he had to make a movie, so they had to put emotion in there and friction, everything else. The fighting, when you go out and fight, is full gas, as hard as you can, just like in war. As soon as you land, the culture is humility. It's all about learning and growing and getting better. And so that would be a core violation. Both of those guys, the way the movie's portrayed, is a core violation of— if you want a Top Gun debrief, it's very surgical, it's very unemotional, it's very matter of fact. And that kind of went through the whole community after that. It was chill. It was all about learning and growing and getting better. It wasn't about who won. And so, if you think about it this way, I'm very input-focused. Get the inputs right and the score takes care of itself. And so, they're into all the learning and not who won or lost because if you do all the learning, the results are going to just show up. Okay? Does that make sense? And so, you might have those kind of engagements on the side, but doubtful. But that was just, some of that was theatrics that then got to you. Yeah, that's the one comment I have about the movie, the whole lone wolf narrative. The movie leans into the idea that one person comes to save the day. You know, real aviation is the opposite. It's a team sport. Success comes from coordination, communication, trust amongst the team. So that's the one area where, you know, the dramatization, of course, is there in the theatrics. But that's not really real. So in actuality, if you saw that type of behavior, you just went, "Lass." It went— That would be what I call a core principle violation. Core principle violation. You'd get a really bad call sign. Yeah. Well, you mentioned, Wizard, this notion of the Top Gun debrief. Um, can, can someone help unpack that? What is that? And also, like, does that— you know, we talk a lot about coaching culture, learning culture, um, you know, in sort of the, the, the corporate organizational space. And to what extent is that Top Gun debrief, like, help shape the culture of of the elite institution that Top Gun is. Oh, I think that was one of the keys. The two things are the expertise, the subject matter expertise that J. Todd talked about, and then the debrief and really getting people to look on it not as a contest of who won or lost, but what you can learn, what the learning points were. And what went well, you know, and Top Gun's polish the goods, fix the others. But it's accountability, as Tracy talked about, positive accountability, looking at where you didn't meet what your objectives were in the event, you know, the debrief is based on the brief. And so being honest and open and vulnerable about what you could have done better And it's amazing to me a lot in these coaching situations and in companies that you had these fairly egotistical fighter pilots and naval aviators in general now, because it's spread all through naval aviation. So in every community debriefs and Top Gun's become the model from the Navy for the surface and the submarines and the SEALs and the Blues and everything else. That you have them being open and vulnerable, and then the civilian side, everybody's still very guarded and unwilling to share and unwilling to open up. And that's a breakthrough that you have to have for, because you have to have a safe environment where people are aligned, they believe, you've heard them talk about this before, they buy into that, that there's open communication and there's trust. And you create that safe environment and you can't do quality debriefs unless you can achieve that. Wizard very quickly mentioned the phrase there, Jonathan, that I use pretty often in coaching leaders, particularly in the domain of difficult conversations. The Top Gun debrief can inherently align to a difficult conversation because maybe it involves a very lopsided outcome. Where there's lots of learning involved and there's a blank whiteboard. There's a T on it and it's goods on the left and others on the right. Those words are very deliberately chosen. It's not pluses and minuses. It's not strengths and weaknesses. It's goods and others. Because we're going to, we're going to celebrate the goods and we're going to double down on those. These other things, we're going to talk about them because we, the next time we go flying, we want to move them over to the good side. So, goods and others is a phrase that I use quite often in my conversations with leaders in many circumstances. You are talking about the good, but the others, it's by calling it others, it's like, here's, these are opportunities, right? They're potential goods. And, and the other thing that really resonated for me, Wizard, you use the word positive accountability, because accountability can be such a scary kind of term. It's like, oh my God, I'm, you know, going to the principal's office, or I'm in trouble, right? Um, and, and positive accountability, a culture where accountability is viewed as, as like this opportunity to become to be excellent and to strive. That's a really interesting, subtle, but very important shift. And I think that that really has some very significant culture ramifications. I do want to just segue for a moment because, you know, in Top Gun, I mean, it's a learning incubator, right? In many regards. And it's not simulation. I mean, it's simulation, but I'm sure real accidents and real consequential things happen in that environment. But we don't always have the luxury of sort of the hypothetical, and leaders, you know, regularly face crisis. Wizard and J. Todd, I know you were both inside the Pentagon, is my understanding. On 9/11. So this is, you know, off the aircraft carrier, on land in the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. And J. Todd, I know in the days that followed, you were assigned to support a family that lost someone that day. I'm just curious, you know, direct this question to you and then open it up to everyone else. You know, what did leading through crisis teach you? And how has that informed how you make, coach leaders today when they're facing crisis or challenge? So, on 9/11, my boss's boss was the Director of Naval Intelligence, and he was a 2-star admiral. He was a colleague of Wizard's on the Navy staff. Wizard that day was much closer to to Ground Central than I was. I was about 300 yards away. But, you know, the armed forces have a very formal process for taking care of victims and their families. One of the components is the Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, who has the dreaded duty of showing up at the door to inform the family of either the missing or death status of their loved one. The Director of Naval Intelligence didn't think that that process was good enough. And he wanted somebody that the family knew and trusted and, you know, could communicate with very freely to be supplemental to that casualty assistance process. So I got assigned to one family and he looked me in the eyeballs and he said, J. Todd, you are relieved of all duties and responsibilities, and your job for as long as it takes is to take care of the Tolbert family. So that's what I did. I went to Dover Air Force Base. I escorted remains back. I gave eulogy speeches in Arlington Cemetery in Fresno, California, and I was all over the map for about 3 months. In hindsight, I didn't really do anything extraordinary or heroic. But I was there doing what the family needed, and just being there mattered. And that whole experience just kind of reinforced to me that, you know, the serious nature of the business that we're all in and how eyeballs and handshakes can make a difference in relationships. Because to this day, you know, that, that widow from 9/11. She's right up the road here at The Villages in Florida, and she and I text, call. I'll probably steer at the 25th anniversary this year along with her parents, his parents. Uh, it was, it was one of the most impactful 3 months of my life just by being there and doing, doing what needed to be done. Thank you for sharing that story, Jay Todd. Wow. The importance of compassion and care, not just rushing to solve problems and skipping over that, but to really be intentional about the compassion and care during times of crisis. I know that all of you at certain points made a transition into becoming an executive coach. So that's kind of like, you know, a mini Top Gun instructor for leaders. And, you know, as leadership consultants, leadership advisors, executive coaches, what are you drawing from in your, you know, from your days in Top Gun or as a naval aviator that is helping and aiding and driving success within your client engagements today? I think one, having lost a shipmate aboard while deployed, having a plane crash, lose 4 shipmates actually, but a very, very close friend to me. I try not to take things too seriously. I try to carry a legacy on that would honor my friend and our shipmates. Nobody's getting shot at is one of the things I always like to say in terms of the urgency and the fear that folks that I'm coaching in the leadership space sometimes exhibit. But also being the first in my squadron learning how to become an aviator. Being comfortable with not having all the answers. You know, I was raised, never say uncle, never cry for help. It's probably what got me through AOCS and got me through flight training, but it wasn't what was going to get me to that next level. So being humble, being willing to not have the answers and actually listen, it's really what makes feedback useful instead of threatening. And so, trying to create an environment where people feel safe to speak up, which is critical in high-stakes teams, obviously. So I feel, and what I've taken away, is when humility is present and vulnerability, people are more willing to contribute, to challenge each other, and to get better together. And I think that's the shift. Humility isn't a weakness. It's what makes continuous learning and that trust and real performance and betterment possible. I love that, Tracy. Um, humility has come up a lot. I also really like, um, just the perspective taking. It's like, I know it feels really intense right now, but like, let's step back. You're not getting shot at, you know? It's, um, like that, that's important for people to like take a breath and get some perspective, right? Um, thank you. Jay Todd, how about you? So, Jonathan, I walked through the doors of Top Gun in May of 1989. At the time, I had never heard about this thing called servant leadership. Wizard mentioned the Green Door briefing a couple times. Parts of that are never discussed, but when I had my Green Door briefing, It was given to me by a Marine who would go on to achieve general officer rank and then became the director of the United States Secret Service. And he didn't know me all that well at the time, and I thought I was pretty well prepared to walk through those doors, um, because you got there, so there's this feeling that Oh, hey, I belong here. And you very quickly learn that it's not about you because somebody will look you in the face and say, Todd, we're going to give you this brown leather name tag. You're going to have a patch on your flight jacket. You're going to have this fancy name tag to stand in front of the students, should you be so fortunate. And we're glad to have you here, Todd. But I'm here to tell you that the day that you bring shame, disgrace, or embarrassment to this team, that will be your last day here. So right there, I learned the foundational principle of servant leadership. It is not about me. I was there to serve them. And it's not just them. You're there to serve a culture. You're serving a mission. You're serving the people that support you. You're serving the fleet. You're serving all the students that come through there. So, you have tremendous responsibility. So, I tell leaders all the time, you don't need a movie to build an elite organization. You don't need Tom Cruise to build a culture of excellence. You can actually do that yourself. You just have to want to do it. So, I'll say, what's your brown leather name tag? What's your light blue t-shirt? What is it that makes your organization prestigious, elite? What makes people that work there feel like they belong there, right? So, that's what I learned in 1989. I keep singing those songs today. Amazing. It's not about I, it's about we, and it's about serving. It's about serving. That's beautiful. Wizard. Well, I'm going to piggyback off of that because we could talk about a lot of things, but I'm going to go down that same chord because it's we, not me. That's a key principle of mine, and you got to get that into the culture. And culture beats scheme, tactics, strategy. Nothing beats a strong culture. And I would argue that you got to have a winning culture before you can have a winning team. And so the thing that, that the, the Top Gun is big about, you've got the patch, you didn't have one. Here it is. That little patch goes on your shoulder. Okay. And it's the same patch for the students, the controllers, the adversaries, the instructors. It's all the same patch. Okay. And, and you don't get the patch unless they think you're worthy of what Todd said, the culture and representing it well and, and honorably, whether you're a student or instructor going forward. Okay. Uh, and it means a lot actually. 9/11, the plane went right underneath my office, took out the 3 floors underneath us. We scrambled out of there. Had some head injuries miraculously. We, with a case of beer, bribed a white-adorned guy to go in and get my keys and wallet and a few trinkets out of what was left of the office. And I had him get this, a mouse pad, which is the Top Gun patch. This survived. 9/11, and I still have it today. So I bleed Top Gun because it really, you know, from my mentor on, it really changed my whole approach to that. And it's exactly what Todd said. It's all about service and helping other people get better. And that's what— where Maverick might not have gotten in or ICE to the real Top Gun because it was all about them. And that's not who a Top Gun guy or girl is. We, not me. We, not me. I absolutely love that. So I want to do just a quick rapid lightning round before we start to conclude this podcast. You know, in sort of under a minute, each, if you think about leadership broadly, you know, in the work, the leaders, leadership you exhibited in your respective roles and in the Navy, leaders you work with today, you know, what's the most sort of underrated quality in your view of, of great leaders? Yeah, I think I said it before. It is all about humility. I think that's You know, you have to be able to listen, give that feedback, take that feedback, do something with it, be able to learn from it and grow from it. But humility, and I would say empathy as well, being empathetic to somebody else's position, taking their point of view, actually wanting to learn from that and to help somebody be better. That to me, humility, and I would say empathy. I'm going to take a slightly different, different tact. You know, when I look back on and not so much Top Gun, but my leadership experience and all the different commands that I've had, I'm standing on the shoulders of some unbelievably great people that really contributed a lot and I get a lot of the credit that they deserve. Okay. And so you have to appreciate that and try to make their lives and world better. So I'm very much committed to that servant leadership approach. But you got to also not be stuck in a box. You got to have possibility thinking. You got to try to— because the world that we're looking at is going to be— this one company that I'm working with, their leader thinks there's going to be in the next 10 to 30 years, there's going to be 100 years of change. So being adaptable and being not not stuck in your ways and flexible and really relating to people is going to be a critical skill for leaders now and in the future. Thank you, Wizard. J Todd. So at the risk of sounding trite, I'm going to go back to Wizard's listen, learn, lead. I don't think we can ever undersell the value of this skill that I think is a perishable one of listening. And I've conducted my own survey over the last 10 years that's backed up by truckloads of data. Oftentimes, you know, I'll challenge a leader to say, tell me about a great leader in your life. Tell me about a great 2 or 3 leaders in your life. And they'll, you know, they'll come up with some names and examples. And I, okay, what did they actually do that makes you say that to me right now? What is it about them? With nearly a correlation of positive 1.0 and only the rarest of exceptions, I hear about great leaders that were great listeners. So, if the data says that, I think leaders should respect that and commit perpetually to practices of better listening because the data suggests that as long as you're a good listener, you're likely to at least be perceived as a great leader. And, you know, I'm preaching to the choir here, but all you have to do is go out anywhere— restaurant, club, ballgame— and just engage in conversation with people. The world is full of terrible listeners. They're mostly just waiting for you to shut up so that they can inject what they've already thought about 5 minutes ago. And I think the leaders that have been really successful are those that are the ones that have learned how to ask an extra question, learned how to say, wait, to themselves, why am I talking? Because they're all so experienced, they can speak right away if they want to. But I think the great ones are recognized for being able to sit back and say, tell me how you came up with that. I want to understand more about about that. People walk away from those conversations and say, boy, he cared about what I said. She asked me questions about what I said. They're so interested in what I talked about. Boy, they are great leaders. Happens all the time. This is tremendous. So rich, so many insights. I do want to just, You know, as we conclude, Wizard, it's my understanding that your father was a pilot. I'd be grateful if you could share, you know, a leadership lesson that he may have passed down to you and also one that you may want to pass on. He was a World War II fighter pilot. He also— they kept him after the war Uh, he became an early jet pilot and he was picked to be in the first squadron of swept wing fighters they were sending to Korea to go chase the MiGs. Uh, there's, there's, uh, and I was killed when I, it was short of my 5th birthday. So, um, uh, but, uh, in that period of time he'd come by the house. Just above the telephone poles, canopy open, waving. So I was hooked, you know, a long time before that. But as a result of that, I became a sly, introverted, insecure kid. It pretty much popped my balloon. And so I have guys that said great through college and for your college roommate that are still amazed that I pulled it off. What turned me around was Top Gun and the exposure to Top Gun and that approach, the standards approach, and my mentor, Pete Pettigrew was his name, the technical advisor of the Top Gun movie, doing the Vulcan mind meld with me, literally taking me under his wings. And it happens today is the anniversary of me shooting down the MiGs. And as Tracy said, it's a team game because the controller Ended up controlling 12 MiG kills. We were his 4th and 5th. And he helped us to get in there and saved us getting out of there because we engaged 4 and they sent another 4 to try to cut us off. The end of the Top Gun movie, the first one, was exactly what the scene on the flight deck was like. Total breakdown of discipline and satchel, only time I've ever seen it. So, but it's a team game. And so, you come away with that, that learning. Now what that caused in me was a desire to study and I read every fighter biography I could. Later I got to meet a lot of the World War II British, American, and German aces. Some became great friends of mine. But there haven't been a lot of great fighter people in history. 5% of the fighter people have shot down 40% of the others. And 80% of the people that got shot down flying in a fighter was loss of situational awareness. They got in trouble and didn't realize they were in trouble. And that hasn't changed. The equipment has changed, but the people inside the airplane hasn't changed. And the same thing applies to leaders. It may be a complex world, but it's still the same game, the same principles we're talking about, I think, apply. And that. And that's where I take Top Gun into really turning my life around and my approach to leadership around and being willing to do that, which is a hand on the shoulder and you're not meeting the standard and you can get better and you can do this. And it's a positive outlook rather than the standard fear-based command and control negative corporate environment that most companies operate under. So positive accountability against this high, high, high standard is maybe the essence on some level of Top Gun, of course, with the humility and the servant leadership and the teaming as represented by this wingman metaphor. But that really was that, that, that Bundle of leadership lessons is, is really what, um, it sounds like propelled you, um, from, from crisis in, in, in many ways, uh, in losing your father. Um, and it's something that you're distilling, um, to this day, uh, to the leaders you coach and, and those around you, which is so beautiful. Well, um, I, I want to thank you all for taking the time to to share and to teach and to inspire all of our listeners on a podcast about leadership. The great irony is that you have this school called Top Gun, which is the elite 1%, the best of the best. And you would think that it's all, that would breed arrogance and heroes and and a lot of I, not we. And it's actually the opposite. Like, in order to even get in the door, let alone stay, it's all about we before I. And it's all about humility, empathy, vulnerability, as you shared, Tracy, and a sort of intense, intense thirst and need for for, for winning and, um, and outperformance and excellence. So, um, thank you again for being here and sharing and inspiring us, and we'll look forward to more great episodes on A Podcast About Leadership. For now, thank you, Tracy, J Todd, and Wizard.